'Fraidy Cat

For a change, this isn't about cat (the boys are doing fine).  This is about the girl who's becoming afraid - of damn near everything.  The stuffed bear at Cabella's (it's a taxidermy bear - looks real, but still not moving), the octopus tile mural on the floor of the pool, creatures in cartoons that she loves - you get the picture.  We put the kibosh on Calliou a long time ago when she was being whiney and reactive, but we're visiting that stage all over again.
I could rejoice - Chuck E. Cheese is on the scary creature list - but this is becoming a royal pain in the rear.  She's a very bright, imaginative, girl, but Godzilla isn't going to eat you.  Hopefully this proves to be just a phase and she'll not freak out at everyone in a mascot costume.  She was scared a year ago by someone in a Darth Vader costume, but she's getting old enough to understand that it's a person in a costume like when she dresses up on Halloween.
Tomorrow we try the pool again - let's see how it goes...

That last step's a Lulu

It's amazing how things can snowball when life acts up.  We're catching up from the aftermath of Lulu's death. Yeah, I'm a sap, but there's just big hole in the house now.  The boys (our other cats) are now realizing how much Lulu "took for the team" in terms of being the recipient of my 3-year-old daughter's attentions.   The kid's also learning that the boys have their own opinions about being a rag doll.  We're all learning to live without our "just chill out and snuggle" cat.
I let the vet send Lulu's remains over to the vet school for the students to examine and got a call back on the results.  She had thrown a large clot and had several more in her heart.  Even if we managed to clear the one clot, there were others waiting in the wings.  The poor thing had been our bad health karma kitty, so I'm not surprised. If the clot had gone another direction, it could have easily been a stroke.

Frumpy Week

I'd say that it's been one of those weeks this week, but it hasn't.  I got a panicked phone call from my hubby on Wednesday morning that Lulu was having problems.  Her hind legs were paralyzed.  This is our 6-year-old blind cat who's been a total rag doll for our 3-year-old daughter.  She's had a really rough health history and this was very sudden.  She had hopped into the bathtub to get her drink from the faucet and was totally normal when I left the house.  It's saying something about her character when she was trying to *not* bite and scratch in spite of her pain and fear.

It's pretty likely that she an arterial blockage, possibly from a clot.  We held out the hope that the blockage could be cleared with meds, but it didn't happen (her legs were warm when she went to the vet, but were cold by morning) and we said our good-byes on Thursday.